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Death by Infelicitas - Is it acceptable?
- Thread starter Jon_Dahl
- Start date
Traveon Wyvernspur
First Post
I'm of the opinion that you let the dice fall where they may. These are heroes taking on crazy odds in a lot of fights and sometimes heroes die. We can all look back with hindsight being 20/20 and say "i should have done this" or "i should have done that" and theorize what went wrong a particular combat. The deal is that without any kind of danger of a character death to me there isn't a sense of accomplishment. It's like giving the 4th-10th place teams in a tournament some trophies. I don't think PC's are entitled to stay alive, they are not immortal.
I know that not everyone feels this way, but in my group we all feel this way. PC deaths are part of gaming and it happens. People roll up new characters and move on with jokes about what old characters would have done. As long as everyone is having fun in their games and at their tables that's all that really matters in the end. You just need to come to a consensus about how your game is going to be run.
I know that not everyone feels this way, but in my group we all feel this way. PC deaths are part of gaming and it happens. People roll up new characters and move on with jokes about what old characters would have done. As long as everyone is having fun in their games and at their tables that's all that really matters in the end. You just need to come to a consensus about how your game is going to be run.
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Can you show us those questions?
Oh yes please! In order not to deviate the discussion, I will create a new thread for these questions and I hope you will enjoy them. I know that my players have. They are easy RPG-related questions which should pinpoint your gaming habits to any GM who reads your answers. I just need a moment to translate them and then I will post them as a separate thread, alright? I just wanted to have at least one interested person first
Traveon Wyvernspur
First Post
I'm also interested in the questions.
d2OKC
Explorer
I gave a short form of my answer in Jon_Dahl's other post, but I'll throw something in to the discussion here, as well.
I don't mind character death from bad luck occasionally. I've had characters die because of bad die rolls. Sometimes that happens.
However, mostly I feel like PC deaths should only happen for three reasons:
1) Poor PC decisions.
This doesn't mean stupid decisions, necessarily. It could mean the party gets beaten, fairly, by that group of trolls. Our group's dragonborn warlord died after getting grabbed by a mountain troll and smashed into a pulp. It made sense that he (the dragonborn) would put himself in harm's way, and that the troll would punish him for it, but it was just poor tactics by the party at the time. No hard feelings. Plus, it lead to some cool character stuff, when the PC realized he hadn't died, because of a resistance he forgot about earlier in the encounter.
2) Players leaving a game (but, it should not be the reason they leave the game!)
I don't usually kill a character when a PC leaves, but it is one of the times I see it as acceptable. But, like I said, a player should never leave because his character died. If it's that big of a deal, wave your DM wand and keep that character alive!
3) Story.
My cleric in Red Hand of Doom died during the final battle of the campaign. It was an awesome moment where he ran up to the final boss (the aspect of Tiamat) and threw his portable hole into a bag of holding to banish them both into the astral sea, and save the material plane from the aspect's wrath. He sacrificed himself to save everyone else, and it was an awesome and appropriate death for Clarke the Cleric of St. Cuthbert.
As a DM, I'm not a huge fan of PCs dying, but I do want my players to feel threatened. Like most have said. It's a balance. *shrug*
I don't mind character death from bad luck occasionally. I've had characters die because of bad die rolls. Sometimes that happens.
However, mostly I feel like PC deaths should only happen for three reasons:
1) Poor PC decisions.
This doesn't mean stupid decisions, necessarily. It could mean the party gets beaten, fairly, by that group of trolls. Our group's dragonborn warlord died after getting grabbed by a mountain troll and smashed into a pulp. It made sense that he (the dragonborn) would put himself in harm's way, and that the troll would punish him for it, but it was just poor tactics by the party at the time. No hard feelings. Plus, it lead to some cool character stuff, when the PC realized he hadn't died, because of a resistance he forgot about earlier in the encounter.
2) Players leaving a game (but, it should not be the reason they leave the game!)
I don't usually kill a character when a PC leaves, but it is one of the times I see it as acceptable. But, like I said, a player should never leave because his character died. If it's that big of a deal, wave your DM wand and keep that character alive!
3) Story.
My cleric in Red Hand of Doom died during the final battle of the campaign. It was an awesome moment where he ran up to the final boss (the aspect of Tiamat) and threw his portable hole into a bag of holding to banish them both into the astral sea, and save the material plane from the aspect's wrath. He sacrificed himself to save everyone else, and it was an awesome and appropriate death for Clarke the Cleric of St. Cuthbert.
As a DM, I'm not a huge fan of PCs dying, but I do want my players to feel threatened. Like most have said. It's a balance. *shrug*
Desdichado
Hero
Like alliteration, huh?
Grogg of the North
Adventurer
PC death is something I try to avoid but I like the PCs to feel threatened. But if they do something stupid, like give a dragon a wet willy, then they deserve what happens. I agree with [MENTION=3300]d20KC[/MENTION] on his reasons for PC death.
I think my biggest reasons against Save or Die as a PC though come down to the following:
1) Some days the dice just hate you. Yea, there may be a 90% chance that the effect will be completely harmless but when you haven't been able to roll above a 4 all session....
2) Combat takes a long time. This is the bigger one for me I think. Combat starts, the BBEG waves his hand at the rogue willing him to die. And now you have a player sitting around at the table unable to play; just twiddling his thumbs. Combat continues for 30 minutes; 45 minutes; an hour. All the while you have someone that cannot do anything. In the worse case scenario, they're sulking. In the best, they may help out by looking up rules or spells. Either way, its hardly what they want to be doing.
Though if I could convince my group to play Toon, then death wouldn't be a problem....
I think my biggest reasons against Save or Die as a PC though come down to the following:
1) Some days the dice just hate you. Yea, there may be a 90% chance that the effect will be completely harmless but when you haven't been able to roll above a 4 all session....
2) Combat takes a long time. This is the bigger one for me I think. Combat starts, the BBEG waves his hand at the rogue willing him to die. And now you have a player sitting around at the table unable to play; just twiddling his thumbs. Combat continues for 30 minutes; 45 minutes; an hour. All the while you have someone that cannot do anything. In the worse case scenario, they're sulking. In the best, they may help out by looking up rules or spells. Either way, its hardly what they want to be doing.
Though if I could convince my group to play Toon, then death wouldn't be a problem....
Desdichado
Hero
I think part of the problem is the disconnect that happens when there's obvious fudging. No matter how "safe" a roll seems to be, you can always roll up that natural 1 or 2, and then where are you? If you want something to be "safe" then either don't call for a roll for it, or make sure that the effects were never meant to be lethal. If you're calling for a roll for your life, then you better be prepared to accept the roll you get. Anything else and the players are wondering they bother rolling at all, and any tension (the fun kind, not the bad kind) is totally deflated.
I would tend to be against this advice, because it can lead to player A holding the threat of quitting over the GM to give their PC immortality, when everyone else signed up to a can-die game, and the others are likely to resent this special treatment. Everyone needs to be treated equally; either it's a no-involuntary-death game, or it's a can-die game. Don't be blackmailed or play favourites.
d2OKC
Explorer
Sorry, let me clarify what I meant.
If a player is good, and losing his character would cause him to lose interest in the game, that's when you should help him out. Especially if it's because of a bad die roll or unfortunate luck.
I wasn't trying to imply that you leave a character alive just to keep someone around, especially someone likely to use that leverage against you. I realize it didn't come across that way in my initial post. Sorry for the miscommunication.
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